European Movement UK

“Give me back my country”?  Let’s take the country forward – Laura Sandys

The Chair of the European Movement conceded that those in favour of the EU had allowed the debate to shift over the past twenty years or so into a place where it’s fashionable, cool, even trendy to be anti – EU. We have, said Laura Sandys, let them get away with it. A lot of British people over the past two decades, and especially since 2008, felt understandably ripped off, patronised and ignored, and their anger had been cleverly captured and channelled by UKIP. The EU like all bureaucracies needed an occasional kicking, but the idea of walking away was entirely self-defeating. 

On offer from the Vote Leave campaign were three options on the supposedly glorious Day One of being out of the EU. First, the ‘twilight zone’ of Norway and Switzerland – the vision of Bill Cash, Owen Patterson and others -where the UK had no say, but still got big bills and high migration. This was the worst of all worlds. Then there was Douglas Carswell’s vision of a “brave new world”, a deregulated Singapore of the west, libertarian, brutal and survival of the fittest. Finally, Nigel Farage’s leap back to the 1950s, a proposition built on nostalgia for deference, segregated education and blaming the outsider for all our ills. 

The campaign to remain in the EU had to get on the front foot, explain why Europe was so central to people’s jobs and security, connect with ordinary people – especially the young – and make sure people voted to stay.